There are three compelling reasons to ensure the right to reproductive freedom of women in Missouri - rationality, trust and mercy.
If we look at all of the qualities that God gave humans, our rationality stands out as unique. God has given us the ability to think for ourselves. We don’t have to take the word of the government, religious officials and others more powerful than us as definitive of who we are and what we believe. Moreover, God gifted rationality to all humans - not just the half of us who are male. Women are able to think through the trajectory of their own future by themselves. Women can call on the religious traditions they hold sacred for their own answers to life’s hard choices. We deeply honor God’s gift of rationality when we respect the life choices of women. We dishonor it when we don’t.
We as humans face many common issues. We need to keep our communities healthy and safe, preserve the institutions that share our knowledge and traditions, and do all of the very broad range of things that cannot be accomplished without help and teamwork. Anything that pervasively erodes our trust in each other diminishes all of us and keeps us from achieving the common goods of cooperation. We build trust by trusting our neighbors. Taking away the right to make private decisions about reproductive healthcare is one of the most distrustful and destructive uses of power in a community. We owe it to our future to extend trust to one another rather than make laws to force others to do what we want.
Women and girls do not become pregnant on their own, and being pregnant is not a moral flaw that requires God’s forgiveness. Taking away the reproductive freedom of a woman can be a death sentence to her. That is an established fact. By restricting reproductive freedom, in particular when that restriction is motivated by a desire to achieve the dominance of a single religion,we create a culture of condemnation, ferar, shame and unfairness. We create a world without mercy for the most vulnerable among us, at the time they need us the most. We degrade the level of communication we need to understand each other and discern the root causes of our fears about the future and our struggles in the present. This election is not a war where a religion that discourages young people from asking questions about pregnancy and how a woman becomes pregnant will triumph over the evil of human sexuality by preventing access to reproductive healthcare. Why even promote that world? Would God really want a world where women and girls face that level of fear and isolation? We have a chance to go the other direction, and it is now.
Rodney Mulvania
Linn
